


playing with knives

by fairbanks



Series: goretober 2018 [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Goretober 2018, Knifeplay, M/M, jonathan 'why go to a therapist when i can make weird and probably bad decisions instead' sims, maybe not the kind of therapy jon needs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 18:04:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbanks/pseuds/fairbanks
Summary: Jon would very much like to forget the feeling of Nikola's hands on him.





	playing with knives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/gifts).



  1. **playing with knives**



 

One thing Jon appreciates about Elias is he never asks if Jon is sure. He watches the tremble of Jon’s hands or the dilation of his eyes, he stares unblinking until he comes to some silent decision on how to proceed. Elias has walked away before, smiled small and said ‘not today, I think,’ and oh how Jon hated him for it at the time, only to give in to begrudging gratitude at no, he hadn’t been ready.

 

Elias always knew, and it scared him. (And he liked it, because emotions weren’t made for words, or his mind could never grasp a way to put the right words together for how he felt- and oh, how he felt with Elias. Anger and loathing and desperation and understanding, a grounding point in careless horror and static. He could never describe it to Elias but Elias knew, and it scared him. And he liked it.)

 

So the same happens again- Elias looks at him sat on Elias’ bed, shirtless and awkward and trying to stare back with some level of stubborn resolve against Elias’ knowing. Meeting Elias’ eyes is an intimate affair, like letting in a gentle but persistent knock at the door, like admitting there was intimacy between them at all only for Elias to smile and say  _ of course, Jon. _

 

(Like when Elias says  _ my Archivist _ in that low tone of his, how he lets careless ownership slip and dares with patient eyes for Jon to acknowledge it. The grey of Elias’ eyes changes in certain lights to a pale blue, and Jon thinks of how no one has ever wanted to own  _ him _ before, how it’s so dreadfully insulting and dreadfully appealing in turn.

 

And here they are, on Elias’ bed, so dreadful, really.)

 

Elias doesn’t shake his head, doesn’t say  _ not today, I’m afraid, _ and walks over to his bedside table. His bed has a plastic sheet with a silkier sheet over it. The bedside table has a long black cloth, a first aid box and more he cannot see beyond Elias’ torso. Elias is still fully clothed, though his suit jacket is gone and fine shirt rolled to the elbows. His forearms are distressingly elegant as they pick something up- metal, a knife glint.

 

“Your word?” Elias asks, and Jon swallows.

 

“Tolstoy.” 

 

“Good. Lie down, Jon,” orders Elias, gentle stone. “Would it be easier for you if you can see what I’m doing?” Jon considers as he shifts back, scoots until he can lie on the bed without any part of him over the edge of it. He nods and isn’t entirely sure why. “Very well, on your back then.”

 

The plastic under the sheet crinkles as he lies down, as Elias crawls up with all the svelte of a damned cat and straddles his waist. “Nikola Orsinov didn’t leave a scar on you. Did she ever cut you?”

 

Jon swallows back instinctual annoyance,  _ you know she did _ , and nods instead. “Shallow cuts, they barely bled.”

 

“To torment you?”

 

“Something like that,” Jon mutters, shivers as Elias’ free hand maps the smooth skin Nikola left him. The hand that is not free has a neat little blade Jon tries not to look at. “I think she was obsessed with skin, she liked to- to touch.”

 

“To touch,” Elias echoes, words dripping sharp, careless and dreadful ownership of the skin Nikola touched. “Like this?”

 

His hand is gentle, firm and impossibly thorough, as if he could read the imperfections on Jon’s skin like braille at his fingertips. “No,” Jon shudders, “not like- not human. Her touches were-

 

(sharp without cutting, cutting without bleeding, knowing without understanding, laughter without breath. Careless and horrible. Mapping fine lines over and over again, whispers  _ this is where we start the skinning, right here Archivist, can you feel that? That’s where it peels- opens up like a pretty little flower. Pluck, off it goes, and then you’ll be so perfect, Archivist, so pretty, I promise. I promise. _ )

 

-wrong.”

 

Elias counts his ribs (did he eat there? He had to have. Did they force food down his throat? Why doesn’t he remember that? It frightens him.) and traces his pulse, follows the jutting and awkward lines of his collar bone. When Jon begins to tremble, feels bile and terror scratch at his throat, then Elias picks up Jon’s hand and leans, lets that hand rest on his chest. The heart beat and warmth bleed into him, breath by breath. Elias watches him calm and says, “Good, Jon,” and Jon feels the stolen warmth spread in a rush.

 

“She had a knife,” Jon tells him, breathless as Elias’ approval of information given without prompting shows on the pleased curve of his lips. “A kitchen knife. A paring knife.”

 

“Always the same?” Elias asks as he picks up his own blade, clean and polished and elegant. Nothing like Nikola or Nikola’s

 

“I don’t… I’m not sure.”

 

“You are. See it, Jon,” urges Elias, and Jon does, closes his eyes, sees

 

(a black handle with silver inlay, a sharp blade with a dull gleam. In the dim light it catches what little it can, sends little pinpoints of bright against the mannequins surrounding them. When it runs teasingly down his skin it feels the same, always the same. Cold, hard, cold.)

 

“Yes,” Jon gasps, eyes open. “Yes, damnit, it was.”

 

“Shh,” Elias caresses his jaw and Jon is so weak, leans into Elias’ palm like he needs it. His hand is warm and soft, human, smells of ink and salt. No plastic, just skin that traces Jon’s bottom lip before pulling away. “A paring knife. She cut you with that?”

 

“Shallow cuts. It was very sharp- too sharp.”

 

Elias places the knife against his skin, the duller back edge against his collar bone and Jon goes still, very still. “How did you feel when she did?”

 

“Scared- what else would I feel?” Jon snaps, muscles tense as the blade moves, the lightest touch down to the center of his chest. “I-I thought-”

 

He swallows, closes his eyes until Elias’ hand is at his jaw again, leaning to force their eyes to meet. And their eyes do, that soft knocking at the door that Jon answers. Elias rarely blinks. Jon realizes he rarely does either, these days.

 

“You’re doing so well, Jon. What did you think?”

 

“I- about dying. About pain, about failure, about… about how I wouldn’t even see this absurd ritual of hers. I wouldn’t see what it’d make the world.”

 

Elias’ eyes are bright, avid. He asks a question he doesn’t need to ask. “Did you feel relieved when you thought that?”

 

Jon’s hands grip the sheets, a crinkle of plastic. “No,” he whispers, shame hot in his throat. “Disappointment.”

 

The hum Elias lets out is more a purr, slow and content. He shifts the knife until the point digs lightly into the center of Jon’s chest. “You came back, and you’ll see so much more. You survived.”

 

There’s something to the word,  _ survived,  _ survived survived survived. He rolls it over his tongue, intakes sharp breath as Elias slides the knife down, leaving a shallow cut in his wake. The next cut is beside that, a little deeper, a little more blood, a gentle parting of skin like lancing the old, gnarled tension until it seeped out. 

 

“Jon,” Elias says softly, a knock at the door, getting his hazy attention with a tone close to reverence. That tone does something dreadful to him, plants a want he doesn’t  _ want _ there, a selfish thing. He swallows, the sheet below delightfully smooth against his fingertips. 

 

“Deeper?” Elias asks him and he nods. “You’ll scar.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Are you thinking of her?” Elias presses the knife down, careful above his heart.  _ Dramatic bastard _ , Jon thinks,  _ of course he’d choose to leave his mark there _ . 

 

“No,” Jon answers, breathless as the knife carved into him, so expertly. He thinks,  _ this man has killed before. He could carve my heart right out of my chest. _

 

“Are you thinking of me?” There’s much more blood now, sliding down to the dip of his collar, over his side, wet on Elias’ fingertips as he traces the edge of the wound.

 

Jon doesn’t answer but Elias looks smug all the same.

 

Elias is efficient in all things, leaves him only a moment to grab the first aid kit as Jon wandered somewhere far away. Elias’ hands bring him back with each careful stroke of damp cloth to collect blood, the cleaning and bandaging and pauses to run a hand through Jon’s hair. “You did very well,” he tells Jon when he’s done, lets Jon rest his head in his lap.

 

“Unconventional task that it was,” Jon murmurs, far too pleased when Elias chuckles.

 

“Often old wounds must be reopened to be cleaned and, perhaps more importantly for us, understood. Catalogued.” Elias’ hands are rhythmic through his hair, a firm but gentle tug. Sometimes he stops on Jon’s neck just a moment, a careless ownership. Jon wishes he minded more than he did. “We’ll weed her out of your thoughts, Jon.”

 

And replace her with you? He wants to ask it. Instead he closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> for the nerd. they know what they did.


End file.
